


The lies we tell in times of war

by Alaskina



Series: The complexity of the truth [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Break Up, Break Up Talk, Cheating, Child Abuse, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, It Gets Better, M/M, Marauders, Minor Character Death, Off-screen Character Death, Original Character Death(s), Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Tears, Touch-Starved Sirius Black, Underage Rape/Non-con, a lot of tears, it sounds worse than it is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:15:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23802928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alaskina/pseuds/Alaskina
Summary: English VersionShe had been running for most of her life. She had been screaming until her lungs gave up and her voice broke. She had been running until she couldn't run anymore. She had begged, pleaded, asked for forgiveness, asked for mercy and she was heard, torn out of her mothers arms, who was more a pile of broken glass than the shelter she should be and sent away, far away in the lion's den, sent to hell, sent to her inevitable doom, if they considered the fact that she had never ever been around kids her age.Eleonora Auclaire was the biggest mystery of her generation, protected and hid away and fascinating.The porcelain doll with the black cracks in her perfect facade.
Relationships: Alice Longbottom/Frank Longbottom, Bellatrix Black Lestrange/Rodolphus Lestrange, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Black Malfoy, Original Female Character(s)/Original Female Character(s), Original Male Character(s)/Original Female Character(s), Original Male Character(s)/Original Male Character(s), Rabastan Lestrange/Andromeda Black Tonks, Remus Lupin/Original Female Character(s), Sirius Black/Marlene McKinnon, Sirius Black/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The complexity of the truth [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1912531
Kudos: 8





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is the English Version of my German fan fiction. Given that I am not even close to the level of a native speaker, I am really grateful for any advise or correction you might have. Further more this is not a literal translation, but more an own book, with parts different or more detailed information. However, the plot will be exactly the same. 
> 
> I do have face claims for every single character. I just want to sax, that none of my character are build on existing people. The faces I use are only that, faces. This is a Harry Potter fan fiction not an idol fan fiction. 
> 
> I orientate myself a lot on personal experiences in a boarding house as well as some of my head canons. If you are interested in this head canons, I will enjoy a discussion about them. However, I don't want to be shamed or insulted for any of my head canons, no matter if they are not possible in terms of the actual canon. 
> 
> Regarding my time in a boarding house, you should know, that I used the ethnical mixture of boarding school we had in my school and I use the impressions they made on me in terms of group behavior. If you have different experiences, I am happy to listen to them. 
> 
> Trigger warnings will usually appear in the notes at the beginning of the chapter. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this book. If you have any questions, please ask. 
> 
> Alaskina 
> 
> TW: 
> 
> Mentioning of past self harm  
> Scars

The sun was burning hotter than it had been burning in the last two months on that day in mid summer. Spain’s summers were something else, but today even the people who had lived in Spain for ages, were suffering more than they expected to.

The mid-summer sun was shining at the little lake in the colourful garden, the whole pride of the family living there and reason for the plain jealousy of the next neighbours, who were living almost two miles away. In mid this setting of blue roses and red tulips and white lilies, a girl laid, her dark, midnight-sky hair was circling her head like a dark halo and her tanned skin was slightly shifting to red due to the sun, she had been exposed to since god-knows how many hours.

Long, deep black lashes framed her glassy eyes, that had the colour of grass and crystal clear sky, that could be so beautiful but now made the impression of a glass bottle, holding no expression, no emotion, no thought, that could be clouding them, giving them life, giving them anything but emptiness. She looked like a haunted house, hiding a broken soul. Her lips had a rosy colour, but lacked care, the flesh exposed and covered with little drops of blood at the edges of ripped skin, that curled up, as if her lips were desert sand that had been suffering due to the heat for to long, now curling up, giving in and exposing the earth it had been protecting for as long as it was possible. As the sand would be doing again, as soon as it would be raining.

The girl didn’t move, she was barely breathing only sucking in air every few minutes, after she had run out of the oxygen, she had gained from her few shallow breaths. Her small and fragile little body was lying in a red hammock, dressed in white fabric that didn’t cover her slender arms and exposed red lines on her left arm. I can't, was written there, not old not even scared properly, even though the cuts would scar eventually and never fade. Never. They could only be covered, hidden away, a dirty little secret.

Everything about her seemed wrong, she was wrong, dysfunctional. No fourteen-year old should be like her, actually no one should be like her. So empty, so angry, so so lost. She had been running for most of her life and now she was paralyzed, something heavy laid in her chest, holding her down, holding her in place in that little town, in the Spanish residence of her family. Her mind was racing and motionless at the same time, circling around this one thought, this one mixture of emotions, this mess of anxiety, panic, fear, joy and gratefulness. Gratefulness for the year she almost had survived only weeks were separating her and her fifteenth birthday, something she had longed for and doubted that she could ever reach it, but there she was, lying in a safe garden of a safe house and everything had just stopped. She was paralyzed, she couldn’t, she had never could she would never be able to do anything.

“I can’t”, she whispered, the brutal truth dripping from her lips, pushing emotions in her eyes, pushing the paralyzing fear that had clawed itself like a poisonous animal in her core up to the surface, and she wanted to scream, to scream until her lungs gave up and her voice gave in, because now it was real and it was terrifying and all she was hearing was her heart pounding in her ears and the echo of her own voice, screaming, crying, howling. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

Thousands if miles away sat Minerva McGonagall in front of her antique wooden desk, completely in the dark of it wasn’t for the candles to bring a little bit of light. Clouds were hiding the sun, black and heavy ones, the ones foreshadowing rain and thunderstorms, and transformed the summer day to a dark night. The wind howled like a wolf roaming around the castle and whitewashed the little splashes of the raindrops breaking on the window every now and then.

Professor McGonagall had known Professor Dumbledore for half her life and up to now she never really doubted one of his decisions. Sure, she questioned them and she mouthed her worries and suggestions to his ideas of which some were just weird and a few just straight up insane, but she never doubted that he did it to achieve something good, that he was doing everything with the well-being of the students in mind. However, right now she was starring down at something that was far beyond insanity.

The last few hours, she had spend by studying files, reading reports of Psychiatrist and doctors and was now busy reading the latest psychological report of the Sant-Anna-Institution which was stationed in France, the country the girl’s family was from. The Sant-Anna-Institute has quite some reputation and was known for their high success rate — the highest in the whole wizard world —, but this girl was probably one of the most stubborn and nerve wrecking patients this institute ever had and Minerva knew one or two hard nuts, that had been sent to the institute. Sometimes she wished she could send some of her students over to the Institute, just to make sure.

McGonagall was not a teacher for no reason. She wanted to teach them, protect them and keep them safe. She had principles, she believed that everything turned out how it should, even if fate sometimes needs a little push in the right direction and a lot more of personal engagement, but everything always turned out like it was supposed to. However, she knew that some things just didn’t match, that there were things that shouldn’t exist and in the psychological report on this girl were things that shouldn’t be standing in the report of a fourteen-year-old. In fact, they shouldn’t be standing in anyone’s report but it was unthinkable, that such things stood in the report of a fourteen-year-old.

Minerva had had the displeasure to teach the mother of the young girl, when she went to school around Grindelwalds rising. A bratty girl, with too much arrogance for her own good, but remarkable talented. Never had the professor even considered letting Emilin Auclaire even raise a child, with the lack of empathy and responsibility she had, but now that she saw the report of Emilin Auclaire’s daughter she wished she had kept the Auclaire a bit more in check, she wished someone, anyone had kept her in check, had been known widely, that Auclaires were extraordinary talented to break their own children.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, was there, written in black ink, a bit further down next to a picture of her arm stood depression, then a list.

Self-destructive behavior

Control loss

Halluzinations

Several pictures of her wrist, her throat and her face on which were lines, small and silver, red and long as well as words. With a heavy sigh, Minerva laid the parchment back on the pile on her left. She took another paper, a picture this time. It was dated for the 07.09.1973, almost two years ago. She must have been twelve at that point. Here black hair was falling dull over her shoulders and was cut untidily and her fingernails were broken and dirty. Her eyes were windows to an empty house, she looked like a vessel without a soul, long gone, a walking corpse. She had been living in Spain for the last few years, after the last incident, and her skin was tanned, but her knuckles were white or red, some freshly scared.

Why on earth would Dumbledore pull that girl out of her save and comforting environment and push her right in the middle of all chaos? How could he do this to a child? How could he do this to his students? The stress that was coming for the girl’s head as well as for everyone else’s was going to increase, considering the rising tension in the wizarding world and the fact that she was going to be part of the OWL’s year, which was a terrible year.

Minerva sighed heavily, her shoulders fell forward and her eyes fell on another parchment. The profile of the girl caught her eye. Eleonora Sierra Aurora Auclaire.

“Merlin’s sake”, the professor whispered and laughed dryly, “who allowed that?” That was a questionable name choice. Emilin had had a bad name, Jelia Auclaire had had a remarkable name, Maélys Auclaire had been the only Auclaire for ages that had a quite normal name and an even more tender and caring character. As far as Minerva knew. Maélys Auclaire had died long before Minerva was born.

And if Hogwarts had not agreed to protect the young Auclaire, the bloodline would end with this girl, the powers of the Auclaires would end with her. Powers that could be blessing, according to some, and a curse according to others.

Under her name were other information listed, her date of birth and place of birth. A detailed summary of her life, Auror reports on the incidents 1966 and 1969, both of the French ministry and the English ministry. There were the results of an IQ Test and a magical potential test. The IQ was a little about average nothing unusual, while her magical potential was way above the average. She looked at here note sheet where she had scribbled down a phrase one of the psychologists had used. _Very unstable, even though she has a lot of potential, in her acute mental state it is impossible that she will ever be able to use this potential._ And a bit further down she had written, _connected to her control loss are powerful but primitive outbursts of magic, usually including broken windows or furniture. Some very basic spells protect from such outbursts even though they are way more powerful than the outbursts of children that haven’t learned how to control themselves yet._

As if they had not already enough students lying in the hospital wing each year.

This was going to be an utterly eventful year. In a few weeks the marauders were back in the castle and were going to steal her patience, time and most likely nerves, even though she really hoped, that Remus Lupin and Lily Evans would somehow gain control over James Potter and Sirius Black. Minerva McGonagall had this certain feeling of frustration when she thought of all those minor injuries she could explain to a lot of anyway worried parents.

She took another look at the picture, at her eyes, that were beautiful, beautiful and empty. The Iris was a mixture of ocean blue and spring-leaves green and framed by a black circle. She had the kind of eyes that seemed to change colour under different lighting conditions.

„Minerva, you shouldn’t worry about things far out of our control.“ Minerva nearly flinched. She had forgotten how light-footed the headmaster was and how much he loved it to startle people, who weren’t used to people who were able to approach them unnoticed.

„Tell me, Albus, why this girl?“ , asked the Head of Gryffindor the question that had been on her mind since the first time she opened the envelope with the files.

„Hasn’t she been running for too long? She has suffered enough, she needs to get away from her mother, she needs to get away from the environment that taught her how to switch off her consciousness and how to keep quiet no matter what she endures. She has to forget the war, before she will be able to survive him. The Auclaires are alone. No allies are left, no one will hide them when Voldemort“, — this time Minerva flinched —, „is coming for them. And he will. He is afraid of what they are able to do, he has been afraid of the girl since she was born.

„If he can lay his hands on her, before she has healed, before she is ready, the bloodline of the Auclaires ends. Thousands of years, hundreds of generations will all end with a little girl that hasn’t been taught how to fight. Voldemort is longing for this scenario, he knows she is vulnerable and he has to make his move fast.

„She has to rest now, Minerva, she needs sleep and comfort. I am not going to deny her something as simple as this. If our protection is going to keep Eleonora Auclaire alive, I will offer her shelter as long as I may be able to do so.“

Silence was filling the room, only interrupts by the rain drops that now splashed louder on the windows, so loud the rain even drowned out the storm. Minerva did understand, she could read between the lines, she knew there was more, things Dumbledore didn’t say, things he would probably never say.Dumbledore acknowledged the worries she didn’t express, that even Minerva McGonagall was wary of the future.

„Maybe you should go to bed, Minerva, there are long, exhausting days ahead. I am already looking forward to the spectacle the marauders have made up for this year.“

„Well, I am certainly not looking forward to any of their antics“, Minerva spoke with lips thin in disapproval.

Minerva would often look back to this day. The day, where the first stone started rolling. The stone that caused an avalanche, that buried everything in its way. An avalanche with an unknown number of survivors.


	2. - 1 - | Clinging to the ruins of a broken home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We start our journey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May I present you the first chapter. 
> 
> If you find any spelling or/and grammar mistakes you are very welcome to point them out. 
> 
> If you are interested in the face claims or any further information that didn't make it in the chapters or anything, I have a tumblr blog just for this pic, but you might spoiler yourself a tiny bit. 
> 
> You can find it here: https://the-lies-we-tell-ff.tumblr.com
> 
> You may or may not have noticed that the chapter title is from a song. The song won't be of any importance and chapters with lines from the same song are not mysteriously connected. 
> 
> Also, if here is anyone who is into historic Asian dramas and knows how the metal thingies around their buns are called. I would appreciate if you share this word with me, I didn't fins out if there is a name for that thing. 
> 
> HEAD CANONS:
> 
> In this chapter you have my head canon of a floo network connection to platform 9 3/4. If that is actually canon then I am very sorry, I didn't know that. 
> 
> Further I have a head canon of international transports in the wizarding world, with something other than illegal port keys (Grindelwald's crimes). I will bring up more about it in future chapters. 
> 
> Also, there is one little shop with magazines, drinks, sweets and toys on the platform, for the idiots who forgot some go this things at home.
> 
> Se-jangmi is the romanized version of the Korean translation of Three Roses (I don't speak Korean, that was google translated. Feel free to correct me.) My personal head canon is that there is an international school in Donghae, South Korea, that was built for students from Korea, Japan and Russia, the three roses. Later it was opened for more students and China found more representation in this school. I have an OC that goes to Se-Jangmi, but her story is still hidden away in my drafts.
> 
> Hope you enjoy the chapter. If you have constructive critic, feel free to write me a comment. 
> 
> TW:  
> Mention of PTSD  
> Flashback  
> Implied child abuse  
> Reference to past trauma  
> Mentioning of panic attacks and anxiety  
> Mentioned past character death (not descriptive, nobody you do actually know)
> 
> If you see any triggers, please comment them. There are triggers, that I don't find triggering, but everyone's triggers are different, and everyone's triggers are important.

The girl in the mirror was a perfect reflection of herself. She was wearing the same yellow short dress, the same perfect skin, not covered in scars, the feet stuck in black sandals with thin flowers covering the straps over the back of her feet, and here nails were perfectly manicured. Her lips were covered with wine red lipstick. The girl in the mirror was small and looked incredible fragile. It was an illusion. The scars were covered by a spell that was permanently and received all its magic not from herself but another wizard who had pitied her enough. Her wand was secured and hidden away under her dress, safely tied to her thigh. The mirror didn’t show her discouragement and the anxiety bubbling in her chest and making her nauseous.

„Sweety, we have to go.“ The voice cut through her thoughts like a knife and made her scramble into action, her head spinning for a second, but she ignored it, made her way through the room anyway, no matter how much she wanted to just stand still for a second and let her blood circulation calm down. She knew it would calm down eventually. It always did and she could deal with the headache that followed.

Before she made her way out of the room, she had grabbed the cat cage that had stood next to the door. Her steps were silent, all sounds swallowed by the thick carpet that covered the floors and stairs in every part of the house. Decades ago it must had been wonderful to walk along this halls on the way to a ball hosted by one of the Auclaire’s. She had found pictures, hidden away in a mirror of a young woman that looked like herself, with similar treats, with the same hair and the similar shaped eyes. Behind her was a man that had without any doubt an Asian background, hide long hair was tied up in a knot and a pretty metal barrette decorated the knot. He was smiling, hugging the woman from behind and intertwined his fingers with hers. Eleonora had felt incredible sad when she had first seen this picture.

She knew her family tree by heart and she knew that something terrible must have happen, because none of her ancestors had married someone Asian for centuries. She didn’t know which of her ancestors was the girl in the picture, because she would have had to break into her mothers bedroom to steal the only family tree with pictures and alone the thought of that almost sent her into a panic attack, but she must had lived a tragic life. But who did she try to trick, everyone of her family was living a tragic life, it had always been like this and her mother would have beaten her for pitying a stranger. Nevertheless the smile of the woman haunted her in her dreams and one time she had dreamed about the boy and how his smile turned into a pain distorted grimace.

Downstairs in the atrium of _Palacio de rosa_ stood Emilin Auclaire. Eleonora saw her halfway down the stairs and tensed up. Her shoulders moved back and she drew in breath. Her mother was dressed in a dress that would have looked silly if it wasn’t for her aura, that made Eleonora want to shiver. No one dared to laugh at her mother, not that they had seen other people really often.

„ _Maman_.“ The word tasted bitter on her tongue, and her mother’s smile cut off her air. Not that it mattered.

„ _Ma chérie._ “ The words made her stomach twist. „Can we go?“

Eleonora nodded almost invisibly, but her mother didn’t even wait for that. With a swerve of her wand the suitcases lifted and floated out of the house and stopped in the blinding sun, as if they were waiting for their owner. The young Auclaire waited until her mother had left the house, than she pulled all her confidence together and made this step out of the door. The first step, the step that led her away from the house, that made everything so numb, the house that was more a place for the dead, not one for the living. The second step was less reluctant, even though it was just as small, just as controlled. Her feet felt as if the gravity was pulling her back to the house, as if the house wasn’t ready to let her go, but with every step she took, every bit of sunshine that touched her skin, gravity gave in, bit by bit and the moment her feet touched the soil behind the outer boundaries of the _Palacio de Rosa_ land, she was finally able to breathe again. Her limbs would stop weighing her down, the moment that train departed, and her mother would be left behind, a figure, a silhouette, a shadow in the distance, and Eleonora Auclaire had stopped being afraid of shadow a long time ago.

„Take your suitcases, Darling“, she said, her voice left no room for interpretation. This was an order, just how it always were orders.

Eleonoras hands clasped around the handles, just in time, because her mother had gripped her upper arm, fingers digging into her skin, leaving red marks and the world faded to a swirl of colours as Eleonora Auclaire and Emilin Auclaire disapparated and left the place behind that had been their cage for almost four years now.

The headache had decided to show up, just before Eleonora’s feet touched English ground. The nausea hit her stomach with the force of a hippo in full speed and almost brought her to her knees, if it wasn’t for her mother who looked down on her with the same look in her eyes she always had when Eleonora broke a rule. So she fought back the bile that had slowly risen up her trachea and gripped her suitcases tighter, before she imagined how a mask covered her face and hid all her emotions. The platform was mildly hectic, a bunch of children stood in front of little shop next to a door that had a sign with golden letter, stating _Floo Network: Arrival_ and just next to the door on the brick wall was another sign. _For departing chimney and direct link to international transportation use go to the backside._

„Only wizard without any class use the floo network or the public international transportation.“ Emilin Auclaire wrinkled her nose with the face she pulled. Eleonora swallowed when she looked away from the door just to look back up, when her mother click her tongue with disapproval.

Two boys, both with extraordinary hair colour, had just opened the door of the arrival room. They didn’t have suitcases and were occupied with a cat cage and a bird cage in which sat a bird that definitely wasn’t an owl. It had similarities with a hawk, the beak was similar in shape and the feathers on its wings and body were similar in colour, but the head feathers were grayish almost blue.

„At least this boy has some good taste“, whispered her mother, and Eleonora was almost sure that she was talking to herself, again. She did seem to do that a lot now. „A really nice _Milvus Milvus._ “ So it was some kind of hawk. From the looks her mother threw in the direction of this bird, a red kite would be her next bird. The two boys disappeared in behind a wall and Emilin pulled herself out of her head space.

„You should go now, Darling.“ And the darling sounded different. There was no emotion in the word, it was completely hollow, and maybe it had always been like that.

„Au revoir, Maman.“

„Au revoir, ma petit.“

Eleonora didn’t turn around, didn’t look back, pushed the anxiety back down and never looked back, even though her head twisted her mothers last words in her head until they sounded pitiful and pleading. Eleonora never turned around to see her mother a last time, not until a small little plop signaled that her mother was gone.

Eleonora got on the train in the moment the clouds drifted away and the sun covered the platform with golden light.

Eleonora had been early, so early, that there was almost no one else on the train. A girl taller than her, even though Eleonora assumed she was younger from the pink unicorn pin in her hair, sat alone in a compartment and read a book. Eleonora almost opened the compartment door, because she knew that reading was distracting. Maybe she wouldn’t even notice. That was, when someone pushed past her and entered the compartment with a high pitched screeching. When Eleonora moved on, the new girl had just been slapped with a book.

She slipped silently in the next compartment and pulled her wand to levitate the suitcases on the luggage rack before she sat down and stared out of the window out on the platform where more and more people crowded, loudly screaming and wildly gesturing.

Eleonora spun her wand between her fingers until moonstone at the end hit her palm. Her mother spent some time on her wand. It had probably been an excuse, because her mother had been careful around that time and Eleonora was dangerous with a wand. Even she knew that. And her mother used her job as an excuse to get her wand out of her reach.

She was a wand designer, which was a job that brought a lot of entitled and arrogant customers with it. Her mother took wands that already had been bought and decorated them. Some were changed in shape, some were engraved with wooden plants and flowers and some people added gems to their wand.

Eleonora did, Seraphina Picquery, who had been the president of the MACUSA, around the time where Grindelwald had been rising was another famous example. Only that she hadn’t given her wand to an Auclaire. Auclaire’s hadn’t been really welcome in the 1920’s or any time before. That had changed the minute her grandmother Jelia Auclaire had helped to arrest Gellert Grindelwald. That was before she died about a year later. She left her daughter behind. Emilin Auclaire had been 22 years old at that point. It wasn’t that Eleonora couldn’t understand why her mother was the way she was.

With a heavy sigh the young Auclaire sank in her seat. The weather in England was much colder than she had anticipated. She surely had a cloak somewhere in the depths of her suitcases but she wasn’t really looking forward to unpacking her stuff in a compartment that could be opened any time.

The moonstone at the end of her wand glowed almost imperceptible when she summoned quietly a flock of little birds. The little sounds escaping her closed lips formed a melody, she had never heard before. Her head fell back when she closed her eyes. Her own heart was beating so fast it could compete with the flapping wings of her own golden birds. The sunshine that fell through the window hit the birds, which glowed as if they were their own little suns. Golden fireballs and burning comets couldn’t compete to the way the sun ran over the metallic golden feathers.

The birds calmed with the sound of her voice, flying one loop after another, casually brushing her cheek with their wingtips. For a moment Eleonora calmed, her breathing normalized and her tensed shoulders relaxed slightly, then somebody slammed against the door and two male voices started shouting in a language Eleonora definitely didn’t speak. It sounded Asian and Eleonora didn’t speak a single Asian language. She spoke Russian, but that wasn’t really an Asian language. Or was it? Why didn’t she know something like this? She was able to write an essay about her family’s history in four languages but didn’t know the classifications of this languages.

Her shoulders were tense once again and her teeth bit down on her lips until they drew blood when she opened the window and let the birds escape into the freedom. For five seconds their feathers were stirred by the wind and Eleonora allowed them to enjoy their freedom before she cut the invisible string with the birds and they crumbled into golden dust that was quickly lost in the wind.

Eleonora slammed the window shut, ignoring the goosebumps that creeped up her back. It took too much energy to give those birds their own life. It wasn’t impossible, it just took energy and a certain level of magical potential. No one ever spent energy on something as useless as bird. The goosebumps reached her neck and she shuddered.

Her wand dropped to the floor when she laid her hands on the window, breathing heavily. The sun caressed her face and got caught in her hair and slowly, really slowly her heart rate calmed and her breathing eased.

In front of the window, the crowd pulsed like a heart. In every corner children and teenagers fell in each others arms, some far enough gone to cry, while others were quick to escape their parents arms, heaving their suitcases on the train and fighting with the animals in their arms.

Alone, with a book in his hands, stood a boy, leaning against the pillar, his clothes were baggy and he looked stretched out. He was probably one head taller than Eleonora and she was able to tell that from at least 200 meters away. Just as she wanted to turn away and find some way to keep herself busy, another boy stumbled out of a group of boys with an indigo blue cat, and nearly tackled the boy to the ground. The boy with the book laughed and hold the new boys shoulder to steady him. The newly arrived one was a lot smaller than the book-boy. He looked not really chubby, but there was no denying that he had some more weight than the book-boy. It could be an illusion. Eleonora was fairly sure even she would look chubby next to book-boy, and she wasn’t. She most certainly wasn’t. Otherwise her mother wouldn’t have stopped to drag her to the scale in the upper bathroom. Both boys had blond hair, even though the taller one’s were definitely a lot darker.

They seemed to chat for a while before two others boys turned up, both black haired and followed by a flock of not overly unobtrusive girls with a wild age range. This was the point she should turn around a read a book. This was it. The one moment. And Eleonora kept looking with amazement in her eyes as she watched the boxes greeting each other with wide smiles and open-hearted laughs.

And at some point, the bunch of girls turned into angry wild cats and the boy with the black hair and the glasses pointed behind the other black haired boy, who turned in a split second, arms wide open for the girl with the brown hair that fell into his arms with joyful smile, and gave her a kiss that made Eleonora's cheeks burn. The other black haired boy must have said something he shouldn’t and received a slap from the dark blond boy on the back of his head while the other boy pulled the girl closer and closer until there wasn’t even place for air between the two bodies and that was, when Eleonora turned away, mortified, blood rushing through her veins and her heart pounding.

She knew that boy. She had met him once in her life and never saw him - or any other child from one of the Pure-blood families - ever again. In fact, her mother was so terrified by the view of her only child talking to the younger Black boy, his brother, that she had never let her out of the house again, if it wasn’t for a visit of the _de-Yorkshire_ ’s who seemed neutral enough for her mother. Eleonora had refused to visit the _de-Yorkshire_ ’s. Of course she did. She was only a five-year old, and a stubborn one as well. A year later she refused, because she was afraid.

She had opened her suitcase and grabbed her book, before she recovered fromm her embarrassment and stopped her circling mind by scanning the pages as fast as she was possibly able to, basically drowning in the words and phrases of _Jacksonville's treatise on wandless magic._

She was able to use wandless magic. She had been practicing since her thirteenth birthday and her mother had perfected the art of wandless magic at the point of her seventeenth birthday.

There were rules for wandless magic, especially in the wizarding communities of Europe, where wands were established and were held as the preferred way of practicing magic. However, this was the complete opposite of African wizarding countries, where it was really uncommon to cast spells with a wand. Or Asian countries, where you were expected to master both techniques. Se-jangmi was whispered to be nightmare for European wizards and that wasn’t even the most difficult wizard school in Asia and only widely known because it was an international school that held there lessons in English. Eleonora had read more bad novels about this school than she had read books about transfiguration and it was most likely the only secret she had kept successfully from her mother.

She made it 20 pages far, before the whistle was blown and her cat mewed with a level of annoyance that was audible.

„Asha, I am not going to let you out, so don’t look at me like that.“

The Bombay cat blinked at her though the metal bars and his blue eyes were sparkling with hidden anger. She couldn’t let him out. He may listened to every single word she said, but who knew how much that applied, when freedom, fresh air and two or three birds were right in front of the door. With all the luck she had, her little cat would be gone in a split second and out of train before she was even able to react, which would lead to either her missing the train because she was searching for him on the platform or him missing the train and being eventually lost, because he didn’t make it back on the train.

The unusual small cat hissed and scratched on the metal bars of his cage before he laid down again and stared at his owner with our even blinking.

„Asha, stop sulking. Go back to sleep, you are not doing anything else on every other day.“

If he had been a human, he would have probably rolled his eyes.

Another whistle was blown and more and more students frantically pushed each other on the train, screaming and cursing as soon as they were out of their mothers view. Some stopped in front of her compartment staring at her with wide eyes for a moment before pushing forward on the search for another compartment.

It didn’t make her especially sad to spend the travel alone, she wasn’t sure how well she would be able to handle any kind of conversation that would be thrown on her. She probably would go into an anxiety attack, probably completely zoning out, she didn’t even want to think about it. She was fine. She was most certainly fine, fine and alone.

The last whistle sounded at five to eleven, parents waved their children with faces Eleonora couldn’t completely understand, but they all had that look in her eyes her own mother had, when she had told her that Eleonora would be visiting Hogwarts to make her OWL’s.

Someone aggressively screamed in front of her compartment and the young Auclaire was able to make out faces. A boy with brown hair smiled widely, exposing his teeth with a manner that seemed similar to a wolf ready to attack and his eyes were dark, glistening dangerously and he probably would have jumped at the boy with the blond hair and the arrogant smirk if it wasn’t for the girl next to him, her brown hair falling over her shoulders in curls and her fingers intertwined with his, bangs nicely trimmed and framing her pretty face. She was having an Asian background, as well as the boy next to her, even though his ethnics were mixed.

Eleonora looked through the door, her eyes wide in fear as the Asian boy lashed out, ready to punch the other one and the girl pulled him back. Eleonora's eyes locked with her's and the girls pupils dilated so much, that her eyes seemed black. She whispered in the ear of her friend, frantically, her eyes still locked with Eleonora's and then they walked away, with long and fast steps, without looking back.

Eleonora swallowed hard, her mind was blank and then the other boy turned around. He had freckles, fair skin, blond hair and green eyes, the same green eyes, those green eyes, eyes in the colour of dried leaves.

Her hands clasped to fists, pain shot through her nerves, her finger nails cut through the first layer of skin. She couldn’t breathe.

His smirked turned to a wide smile; dangerous? Grateful? Predatory? She wasn’t sure, she couldn’t see his face clear, she couldn’t breathe.

He turned around, with the elegance of a dancer and the gracefulness of a noble man. Pure-blood attributes, her brain registered, but she still wasn’t able to breathe and it hit her like a wave, washing her away with an easiness that would have been shocking if she had never experienced it before.

She had had several psychiatrist who pushed this waves to several different conditions, but most of them said it was part of her PTSD, and not of hallucinations, which didn’t matter. The triggers were similar and the things always the same, she was never sure if she was awake and she always zoned out, couldn’t remember the time she had been in the wave, wasn’t even sure how much time had passed. She wasn’t a psychiatrist, she was missing important knowledge about her conditions to do anything, to sort them into the categories she had, she didn’t have any knowledge about the complexity of the human brain, didn’t even know the exact differences between the wizard mind and the muggle mind, only that there were differences, but they reacted the same to trauma. But even that faded, when she drowned and she lost herself in her own mind, tangling helplessly in the strings of a spider that lived in her brain and made it a trap.

She found herself in something similar to a hospital, only that it wasn’t real. There was only white and the only things she could see was the woman, the woman’s chair and the notebook in her hands. Her own body was aching, pain burning though every cell of her body, but at least she could breathe. Her face felt hot and her whole body was trembling, but she wasn’t cold. Her lips tasted salty, when she licked of them and wanted to hiss because the burning on her lips intensified.

She was a child again, eight years old and in pain, the blood loss made her tired and the coma she had been in made her weak and the doctor knew, but still stared at her, her gaze took her mind apart and saw everything she tried to hide. Eleonora could see it. She saw it in the brown eyes, that looked over the frame of the angular, black-framed glasses. Her eyes were brown, and soft, like molten chocolate but in her right eye close to the pupil was a blue-grayish spot, that looked like a thunderstorm cloud.

Her gaze dropped down to the paper, covered with notes, and wrote in neatly clean, curved letters:

_probably mild to moderate Post-traumatic stress disorder._

Her state after memory, that was how she called it, was always different. She had had screaming and kicking, straight back into a panic attack, crying, numbness, phantom pain or just simply waking up, with full awareness of her surroundings as if she had just fallen asleep. She preferred the last option.

This time she was lucky or maybe her medication had been adjusted for this situation, but when she snapped out of her wave, she was able to breathe again and the most certainly had been gone for quite a while, because before the window the landscape passed and in front of her sat another human being, with elven like features and strawberry blonde hair.

„If you aimed to be topic of they train before even arrived at Hogsmead, because your clothes are short enough for a goddamn strip club, you have succeeded spectacularly.“

Eleonora was close to short-circuiting, her spine tingled and her brain went blank. That was a situation she never had before and it would be much easier if she knew what a strip club was, which she didn’t.

„That is fashion in Spain“, she answered, firmly, without shaking voice but her cheeks heated up and even if she never blushed it wasn’t a particular nice feeling. Her brain focused not the main question, on the only thing important now. Who was this girl, that was looking at her, half staring suspiciously, half grinning with a Slytherin bracelet around her left wrist, sitting in her compartment?

As if she had smelled the question she opened her mouth, words sounding sweet and luring.

„Christina. And who are you?“


	3. - 2 - | I can hear the sirens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eleonora meets people (read: people invade her personal space and don't seem to care).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, ahm, the point is, everything I could say is some kind of spoiler. 
> 
> All the people in this chapter are OC, however Christinas older brother is mentioned and he is a canon death eater. I do believe that he is much older than Christina and that is why he is not on the train. 
> 
> Jill has a twin that will appear later on and I think he does his own thing, even though you could argue that he is more like his mother. 
> 
> The attack that is mentioned is also my head canon. 
> 
> Triggers: 
> 
> pet names/cat calling (pretty girl/darling)  
> mentioning of orphanage  
> pretty casual talk about dead family  
> terror attack mentioned

Eleonora knew that about 40%of a persons character was determined by their genetics, however, that were numbers for muggles and she was most certainly not one. She wasn’t entirely sure how big the difference between muggles and wizards regarding genetics was and she was neither smart enough nor invested enough to actually figure it out, but she was fairly certain, that paranoia was nothing you could inherit. However that didn’t mean that she hadn’t copied any of her mothers behavior and her mother’s paranoia was enough for two, especially if Eleonora considered the fact that her mother had locked her up in the house since the beginning of her memories and the everlasting presence of protection spells around the house. It hadn’t protected her much, that was for sure, but that was entirely her fault.

That didn’t change the girl with the smug smirk on her glossy lips, sitting right in front of her after she had introduced herself.

Christina.

There were only two Christinas belonging to pure blood families that were still attending to Hogwarts. One was a descendant of the Romanoff family, momentairy visiting Year 7 of Hogwarts. A red head with brown eyes and cold heart. That was what had been whispered.

The other one was Christina Yaxley, youngest of the Yaxley family, only one with strawberry blonde hair and currently in her OWLs-year.

The slight possibility that the one in front of Eleonora wasn’t a pure blood, was quickly ignored. It was dangerous times and it was a not-so-well-kept secret, that most of the pure blood families had picked a side. And there weren’t very many half bloods and muggle born that would risk their head for a bit of chatter.

„Yaxley?“, she finally asked, her tongue felt awfully dry and her eyes were fixed on Christinas ear, but she could still see the dangerously calculated smile.

„What gave it away, pretty girl?“

„Just a feeling“, she lied effortlessly and in the back of her head she wondered why sometimes lying seemed to be the easiest thing in the world while she nearly choked every time she tried to lie to her mother and just like that her eyes wandered back to the window, colorful trees and flowers brought colour in the swirl of green that passed the window. It would have been peaceful if it wasn’t for the Slytherin girl with a face that was as readable as a book in complete darkness that made the base of her neck tingle.

„So, you are a little psycho, aren’t you?“

And just like that she actually whipped her head around, her eyes wide and her dry lips opened just a bit when she lost every bit of composure she had, for a second that felt like a century.

„I am just saying“, Christina Yaxley explained and looked down on her nails, almost bored but her body was tense and Eleonora just knew that she was still in Christinas peripheral vision, „sitting there for half an hour without moving and this look in your eyes, girl, you almost scared me…“ And she shrugged as if she just spoke about nothing and lifted her head enough to meet Eleonoras eyes and it was as if she had punched her in the guts. Her eyes were empty. Eleonora just knew that they were, she had seen empty eyes way too often in the last few years, but she didn’t know it would startle her like that.

„Tell me, pretty girl, what’s your name?“

Eleonora felt like she had to puke, she could feel her finger trembling and the shouldn’t, _they weren’t allowed to tremble._ She cut the eye contact trying to concentrate on just breathing, because she couldn’t panic right now, she couldn’t, she needed that Yaxley girl to _go_.

„Alright, then keep quiet and let me _guess_ “, Christina breathed with so much amusement the Auclaire’s throat clenched, „You are pure blood. It is in the way you sit, the way you act, the way you move your fingers. We all do that. You are ahead of your age, mentally and in terms of education or whatever you want to call it. How old are you? Fifteen, sixteen. You are awfully careful for being a _child_. And you are not just shy, you are calculating. You have lived in Spain for a while, but you weren’t born there and you were most certainly not raised there. And you are a hunted. You don’t look at me, not directly, but, oh sweetheart, your attention has risen ever since you have seen my bracelet and heard my name. You are trying hard, really, but you look so scared through all those cracks in your pretty mask. Your hand is an awful lot closer to that wand of yours you have tied to your tie. Nice trick, though. You don’t want to fight, but you are ready to do what you have to do. You are running, pretty girl, running from the person my family follows. You are running from the Dark Lord. Don’t tell me you are another _de-Yorkshire_!“

Her breath had been knocked out of her lungs about half way through the monolog of the red head and only gradually found its way back into her lungs, providing her short circuiting brain with the much needed oxygen. She slightly shifted her weight from her feet further back, just so she wouldn’t look like she was going to jump and run at any given second and extended her shaking fingers only to bring the back in.

Christina Yaxley had been terrifyingly right with her assumptions. With everything except her _de-Yorkshire_ guess and it made her heart race.

„You can call me Antonia“, the Auclaire whispered, almost too quietly to hear, but the Yaxley caught it anyway.

„Antonia“, she repeated as if she was trying out how the name tasted. Her disturbingly sharp brown eyes did never lose sight of Eleonora’s face.

The Auclaire didn’t even know that there was such a thing as sharp brown eyes. She had always thought that the coldest and sharpest eyes were blue. And here was Christina Yaxley, with Chocolate brown eyes, that were piercing her face like needles and were empty at the same time.

However, nothing of that explained _why_ the Yaxley was in her compartment.

„What is a Yaxley doing in here with someone like me?“, she asked, proud, that her voice didn’t crack or wavered, and tried to keep starring at the Slytherin.

„Oh, I wouldn’t like being defined by last name, pretty girl. Apparently you don’t want to be, either. It is not a secret though, my family isn’t really enthusiastic about me. And I do have a very little number of friends I have been looking for when I passed your compartment. I suppose my three lunatics can wait for a while, so I can figure out this really interesting, surely new being, that seemed to be similar in terms of revealing clothing.“ She did sound teasing and she looked even more teasing when she cracked a wide smile

Revealing clothing. Is that what she called her dress? Because it showed too much skin?It was not really that revealing. At least not as much as Chirstina’s clothes. Maybe it was, because the clothes looked really nice on Christina that Eleonora hadn’t noticed before, but besides her beautiful face she had an amazing body. Her legs were long and nicely proportioned, even though they almost seemed a bit too thin, especially her thighs, that were basically only long, thin muscles and skin. Her skin looked like milk, flawless and pale, very close to looking unhealthy. She probably hadn’t spent a lot of time outside over the holidays, or she used magic. The latter was more likely, since her body looked trained, just like the body of a Quidditch player.

Her abdominals were trained, her slim shoulders and long, thin fingers reminded Eleonora of a feather for some reason.

Under the long sleeves of her burgundy top her muscles emerged and the soft curves of her rip cage were not covered by the fabric.

„Seeker“, she announced with wide smile and Eleonora’s eyes darted back to her mouth, eyes wide, her cheeks heating up again, without actually blushing. Christina opened her mouth, probably to continue her teasing, when the compartment door was thrown open.

„Your brother“, the intruder basically screamed, her dark brown her, that matched her skin colour ruffled with anger, „I swear to God, your brother is such an _asshole_!“ Not for the first time today, Eleonora flinched hard. But that didn’t stop the girl from ranting. „I met him on the platform! I swear by Merlin’s beard, if he was on fire I would rather break my wand than extinguish the flames. That fairy descendent, that Merlin forsaken monstrosity of a sorry ass wizard“, she ranted, her dark eyes seemed to be on fire and even though she was probably the same height as Eleonora, the Auclaire wanted to die right there on spot.

She had never ever even heard most of the insults that had just left the girls mouth.

„Can’t say I wouldn’t do the same“, said Christina casually and slowly pulled her feet out of the black ballerina shoes, before she went on pointy toes and stretched until several joints cracked. „Merlin, that’s nice“, she actually moaned before she fell back in her seat and laid down.

Eleonora was done. Her mind raced at several hundred of kilometres an hour and was completely overwhelmed by the Yaxley that didn’t follow the guidelines and the girl that was still rambling in a language she didn’t speak.

„Jule, the uptight looking woman on the seat there is Antonia doesn’t-want-to-say-her-last-name. Pretty girl, that’s Jule Liean, Hufflepuff in seventh generation and last survivor of the Trei-cai-attacks.“

„Pleasure to meet you“, the Auclaire whispered and unsubtly starred at the thin scar that covered Jule’s left hand. The Trei-cai-attacks were famous and terrible. Death eater had blown up an entire neighborhood in Romania, most of the survivors died later on. Fifteen of injuries, eight because they couldn’t shut out the screaming of their loved ones.

„Nice to meet you, I’m Jule, Hufflepfuff“, the repeated the information Christina had already given and smiled kindly before she sat down next to the door.

For about five seconds would have been completely silent if it wasn’t for the loud chatter outside and the monotonic noises the train made. Then, out of nowhere Jule tensed up and shot in to a more vertical position. „Did you see Jill by any chance? I mean, the train completely packed, but I did in fact see her twin. Just her signal fire hair didn’t show up anywhere.“

Christina chuckled. „Na, didn’t see her. But I have seen Danny. He was on his way up here, when I told him I would go first. Maybe he picked her up.“

„You know, that Daniel hates it, when you call him like that.“

The smile on the Slytherins face was devilish. „Oh, I know he hates it, but he dissent say anything against it.“

Then she twisted her head until she could get a straight look on Eleonora’s face. „Na, pretty girl? What house do you prefer?“

Jule twisted her body and shifted until she laid on her stomach and looked up to the other black head in the compartment. Her face seemed to glow with excitement.

The Auclaire’s skin prickled, again, when she tried to cling to her sanity. „Maybe Hufflepuff or Ravneclaw?“, she breathed and started fidgeting with her dress immediately to hide the trembling.

„I don’t think that Hufflepuff will work out“, the Slytherin answered carelessly.

Jule tensed up again and frowned. „I am also in Hufflepuff“, she jumped to Eleanora’s defense.

„Yeag sure, but the head sorted you before they killed off your family and you started to live for revenge. If you were sorted today, the head would send you straight to Slytherin, Darling.“

The Darling explained why Jule didn’t flinch once or commented on the pet names.

„Oh!“, the Hufflepuff nearly screamed and jumped from her seat. „I really thought a Slytherin would now when she should keep her mouth shut!“

„Oh“, Christina answered much more calmly with a smirk on her lips, „I do know when I have to keep my mouth shut. Right now I don’t see any reason to do so.“

Jule stood up and seemed to be ready to jump on the provokingly relaxed Slytherin, when the door slammed open.

„Sit down! If you fight on the train, you can stay on the train!“ The third unwanted person on Eleonoras compartment growled. The whole situation seemed to be far from what reality should be like, especially since Eleonora knew that girl that had just ordered Jule back into her seat.

„Hey, Elea.“

In the door of a small compartment on the Hogwarts Express on a sunny 1 September 1975 stood Jill Scamander, the smartest witch Eleonora had ever met and the person who stayed with her for a year after her first traumatic incident.

„You two knew each other?“, Jule asked confused in the same second Christina opened her mouth.

„Elea? Thought your name is Antonia?“

Realisation seemed to hit Jill like a train and an almost unnoticeable smirk pulled on the corner of her mouth. „Been a while, Eleonora.“

There was a short flash of dominance in her eyes that tickled at the base of Elea’s neck, when she answered with stern voice. „Long time not see, little raven.“

Her freckles danced over her face when she smiled brightly and tucked one of her long strands of red hair behind her ear. „Dad send you two an owl, wanted to invite you. The owl looked pretty wrecked when she came back.“

The Scamander had without any doubt inherited her fathers love for animals and shot the Auclaire a sharp glare.

While she was some sort of genius, her brother had been trying to catch up to her for his whole life and Sammy Scamander was nothing like his dad, who had spent most of his school life patching up injured animals, if Eleonora believed her mother stories.

Apparently her mother went to Hogwarts before something pulled the paranoia and arrogance out of the hidden corner in her mind and even more so, she actually got along with some people, to which Newt Scamander belonged.

They had lost each other a couple of times and found each other again and again until they finally kept contact after the funeral of Elea’s grandmother, according to the diary Elea had found when she was much, much younger and less scared.

Her mother believed that Auclaires and Scamanders had some sort of connection that was above magic the wizarding world could understand. To be honest, it was above what Eleonora could understand but she _trusted_ Jill Scamander - or at least she had done so the last time they had seen each other.

_If we are actually connected, I am going to need you, and if we are not, please don’t leave me alone._


End file.
